


How Young And Innocent We Were

by northblossom



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Canon Era, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, also the phantom does not make any appearance, at least I think so, i didn't do any research at all, i forgot completely about raoul's siblings, i'm a simpleton like that, unfortunately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24488956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northblossom/pseuds/northblossom
Summary: Six specific memories Christine has from growing up with Raoul, memories that brought the two of them closer together.
Relationships: Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	How Young And Innocent We Were

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!!! so i wrote this for a norwegian exam and got a perfect grade on it, so i translated it into english for fun :')

_It might as well have been yesterday_ , was all I could think as I looked through the old photographs. They were small, glued symmetrically, seemingly by someone who knew their way around such a beautiful photo album. And a beautiful photo album it truly was. “R. DE CHAGNY” was written in golden writing on the cover, followed by the year “1898”. The pictures were faded and worn out around the edges, and I could find no pictures of myself there, but it didn’t matter. The pictures of Raoul were enough. They brought back memories of a time I’d forgotten, memories I didn’t think would hold any value to me.  
“Christine?” I heard him call from the kitchen. He’d been messing around in there for a good while. From what I could understand, he was trying to bake a cake to bring to the party. “Christine, we’re a little late. Are you coming?”  
I smiled. “Just a moment, Raoul,” I said softly, and then closed my eyes, letting myself sink into the pictures - the fond memories playing over in my head. There, I was in a different time, a time when I thought friendship and marriage were two parallel lines, two different words that could never meet. Then, I had thought you could never marry a friend, and that becoming friends with the person you were married to was near impossible.  
One thing I knew for certain was that it’d take more than just a moment for me to return to present time.

The first time, I was no more than nine years old, and he couldn’t have been more than eleven. My hands shivered all the while through the carriage ride, the thud of the horses’ hooves against the cobblestone road fading into muted heartbeats in my head. What I was so afraid of, I cannot recall. I suppose I was like most children usually were: afraid of change, afraid to travel away from what I knew so well to chase something new. Or, of course, in my family’s case, to have enough money to get by.  
“Christine, you know it’s going to be okay,” my father kept saying, stroking my hand with his thumb. I believed him, but I was still scared. When we arrived, my father had told me to stand straight, smile politely and speak when spoken to, and that was exactly what I intended to do.  
The lady who came to greet me wore a wonderful dress. It was a soft pink, with beautiful lace on her sleeves. I remember how beautiful I thought she was, how kind she looked. “Countess de Chagny,” she said her name was, and then she asked what my name might be. My father answered for me. I remember, because I was busy trying to remember if I’d ever met anyone called Countess before. Later, I would come to know that that was a title, and that her husband had another name in addition to just Count.  
Their son came at last. He was about a head’s height taller than me, and had his mother’s kind eyes, his father’s brown hair, and an angel’s beautiful smile.  
“Raoul de Chagny,” he said his name was.  
“Christine Daaé,” I answered, and curtseyed just like my mother taught me.

The second time, I had turned ten, and he twelve. I remember it being still, and thinking how peaceful everything was. Warm sunlight poured through the windows, lighting up the dust in the air, which flew around in the room like small fairies. The room was cold, but Countess de Chagny had given me a blanket. I remember how focused Raoul looked as he sat on that stool, paying close attention to what my father did. Father had offered to teach Raoul to play the violin, and the Countess de Chagny had said that she would love for him to learn. _The young Viscount is very talented_ , father would always say, and then he would grin at me as if there was something in particular that he wasn’t saying. After about four hours’ time, he’d learnt a slow, calm song called “fair and lovely Clementine.” My father smiled as Raoul played and I sang, and for the first time in a while, father looked truly happy. Raoul played it probably three, maybe four times before growing tired, but I would have sung with him even if he’d played the same song a thousand times.

The third time, I was fourteen, and he sixteen. It was June, and there was a comfortable heat in the air, a heat that turned a shade weaker when met with the gentle offshore winds. There was still an air of impersonality in the way that we spoke to each other. My father and I were technically only there to work, after all, he as a cook and a violin tutor, and I as someone for Raoul to talk to apart from his parents. He insisted on calling me Miss Daaé, and I insisted on calling him Viscount, as that was what my father referred to him as, but we saw each other as friends, I believe - as equals. We joked together, told each other stories, challenged each other to climb trees, as all friends did. In the absence of anything better to get up to, we had taken to racing on the beach, seeing who could run the fastest from the line drawn in the sand to the pier. I remember that he would let me win sometimes, and other times he would give his all and beat me by a landslide, but there was one time in particular I earned a fair victory. That time, I wore a scarf, a red scarf that was no more than a piece of fabric my father had ripped from an old dress. It was not until I had crossed the finish line alone that I noticed my scarf had fallen off and blown into the sea. Raoul noticed before me.  
“Christ, I’ll get it, Miss Daaé,” he shouted, his voice muted by the strong winds.  
“Viscount, my goodness, don’t bother, it’s freezing out there-”  
But he was already waist deep in the water, holding my red scarf triumphantly in his hands. He was about to hold it up, but a wave crashed over him as he posed, almost knocking him over. But Raoul knew his way around in the water, and no more than a second later, he straightened back up, grinning, the red scarf held above his head as he waded back to the shore.  
“What did you do that for?” I asked, unable to stop smiling.  
“Nothing but an act of kindness,” he grinned, handing the scarf to me.  
“Are you sure that it wasn’t either chivalry or stupidity?” I shook the scarf in the wind, salt water dripping from it.  
“Forgive me, Miss Daaé, but I firmly believe that those two are the same thing,” he countered with a lopsided grin, running a hand through his dripping wet hair.  
I couldn’t help but blush.

The fourth time, I was sixteen, and he seventeen. We sat in the grass, looking at the sea. The silence weighed on me, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, because I knew it was necessary. That Raoul appreciated it.  
“It was a lovely ceremony,” I said after a while, as if that would help.  
“I think so too,” said Raoul, with a half hearted smile.  
“The speech, the one your father gave. They were beautiful words he spoke.” It was true. Count de Chagny had spoken for a long time about his wife, how bravely she had fought her illness, and all the ears in the room were tuned in to his words. Mid sentence, he had stopped himself and let a sob escape his lips. Then, I’d turned to Raoul, who sat with his head bowed and his eyes closed, breathing heavily as though he was trying not to weep. “To the fair Eloise,” said his father at last, with a glass raised in his hand. He smiled, even though tears streamed down his cheeks, I remember that.  
“They were beautiful words,” Raoul echoed, distant in both his voice and his eyes. “They were all true.”  
“Of course,” I said, and smiled again. I looked at him, even though it hurt to see him so sad. The glittering sea mirrored in his blue eyes. “I remember that she was. Beautiful, I mean.”  
“That, she is still,” he said quietly, his gaze turned heavenwards.

The fifth time came no more than a few months after the third. We sat in the living room together, he played and I sang. He had improved a lot since he started. The sound flowed better now, almost the way it flowed when my father played. It was soft, soft the way sunlight felt on skin. “Fair and lovely Clementine,” was the song he played, but I switched Clementine out with his mother’s name, Eloise. It sounded a bit unfamiliar, but it made him smile, and that was all I hoped for. When we reached the fourth verse, Count de Chagny entered with fire in his eyes and red cheeks.  
Raoul let the music from his violin die then, and I stopped singing. His father came towards me first, for I had been the one singing.  
“Don’t you dare,” he began, pointing accusingly at me, “disgrace the Countess de Chagny with that dreadful song.” Raoul was about to get up, but I held up a hand to tell him to sit still.   
“Commoners. Here, at our estate,” sneered the count. “It’s a wonder, girl, that I let you and your father stay here still.”  
“I only wanted to make Raoul smile, Count de Ch-” I began, but he lifted his hand and struck me. He didn’t hit hard at all, but it hurt my pride all the same. I closed my mouth and said no more.  
Later that evening, when I went to sleep, I heard Count de Chagny and Raoul yelling at each other downstairs.  
“Not her,” I heard Raoul yell, frustrated. He was not in any way one who usually controlled his voice, but he was way louder, now. When I heard him speak, normally, he was loud because he was excited, or happy. This time, however, it sounded more like anger, more like frustration. “She did no wrong! Strike me all you want, but not her!” I didn’t know if I should smile or cry.

The sixth time, I was seventeen, and he nineteen. Count de Chagny was forgiven, for I knew what men were like when they had to grieve the loss of someone they loved highly.  
It was my birthday, and Count de Chagny had gone a little crazy, inviting family and people from the village to celebrate. Why, I didn’t know, but I appreciated it all the same. It looked as though my father and Raoul did so too.  
Halfway through the party, Raoul took my hand and pulled me with him to the garden. I asked him what on earth he was doing, and he told me to wait and see. I smiled, of course, and went with him, in my chest an excitement in me that hadn’t been there before. He stopped next to a tall tree.  
“I have nothing spectacular to show you,” he said, apologetically. “But, I do have something to give you. And something to tell you.”  
“Tell me,” I said, my heart racing in my chest. First, he took out a small gift box, with a ribbon wrapped around it. He gave it to me and asked me to open.  
I smiled and did as he asked. Inside the box lay the most beautiful necklace I’d ever laid eyes on. It was small and simple, but gorgeous all the same. The chain in itself was gold, and from the chain hung a pendant. It was a round, orange gem with a small, green metal detail at the top, where the pendant was to be attached to the chain.  
“Oh, Raoul,” I breathed, with perhaps the biggest smile in the world.  
“It’s-”  
“It’s a clementine, I can see that,” I beamed. He hummed a few bars of “Fair and lovely Clementine”, our song,  
“See here, if you turn around, I can see if I can find my way around with the clasp,” he laughed. I turned around, and of course he figured the clasp out. He hung the necklace around my neck with careful movements and took hold of my shoulders to turn me back around. In that moment, he glowed like the sun.  
“What was it you wanted to say?” I asked.  
“So you’d like to hear?”  
“Of course I would!”  
“Are you sure? We’re in no hurry.”  
I rolled my eyes, fondly. “Please do go on. I’m curious.”  
“Alright, then. I suppose I can tell you. I love you, Christine. Very much,” he said, smiling as if it was nothing big.  
“Beg your pardon?”  
“I love you,” he repeated, grinning.  
Then, I slung my arms around his neck and kissed him. It was a short thing that I ended first, and I pulled back to say something, before shaking my head and kissing him another time. He looked almost surprised when I looked at him again.  
“We must go,” I said, my cheeks red. “They’ll wonder where we are.”  
“Christine, I love you,” he said again, and I could see that he loved to say it out loud.

The seventh time, well, we were here. I with the photo album in my hands and him, headed out of the kitchen with some sort of cake in his hand.  
“Christine, what are you-” he began, and his smile softened. “Ah. That album again?”  
“Yes,” I laughed, closing it. I lifted my hand absentmindedly to touch the pendant of the necklace, the same necklace from all those years ago. “I love the photographs.”  
“There are none of you there,” he pointed out.  
”Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s you I like to look at.”  
He smiled and offered his arm as I came to him. I looped my arm around his.  
“What will your father do when he hears of this, you think?” I asked softly, looking fondly at the golden ring on my finger - his golden ring, with his initials engraved.  
“Whatever happens, happens. I’m going through with it either way,” he smiled, gently lifting a red scarf down from a peg on the wall - my red scarf - and draping it over my shoulders.  
“As long as you’re sure you love me as much today as you did back then,” I hummed, leaning on him.  
“You know I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed this!!! i sure enjoyed writing it sjsjsj  
> i don't usually like writing with a first person pov, but that was the assignment so i had to make do.  
> feels good for once not to write heartwrenching angst!!!<3 see y'all next time!


End file.
